


PROUD

by NeedleFrost



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, I don't even know how to tag, M/M, Multi, NO DEATH, Other, Please Forgive me, Time Travel, connor is a troll, connor is having fun, i am having way too much fun, omg i haven't written in forever, there are anime companion androids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 10:43:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20241559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeedleFrost/pseuds/NeedleFrost
Summary: The man stands outside of Hank's house, black pants with a subtle diamond pinstripe up the side, lavender-grey bowtie around his neck, and a fez perched on his head.  He wore a cardboard box that had a crayon depiction of a TARDIS on it, and didn't that just about hit all of Hank's Time Traveling Clauses?"Hello Hank, the date today is August 14th, 2038, correct?"Scratch that, all of them?Or, alternately, a Connor travels back in time fic.





	PROUD

**Author's Note:**

> Ooooh, wow. So I haven't written anything in a good long while. Please forgive me for any sudden tense changes and such, I am going to try going through it again tomorrow, but I have to set this free into the world now, or I might never. It's currently 2:30am here, and I have to be to work by 7, opps. @_@

THE VELVETEEN RABBIT 

Daniel’s eyes drifted around the cement block room as he was led in by the men that had introduced themselves as Lieutenant Anderson and Detective Proud. It was about what he would have expected, after watching crime shows countless nights on the couch with Caroline and John, with popcorn in between the two humans and a cup of thirium for himself.

The Lieutenants’ heart rate spiked up as soon as the three of them were seated, but started to slow down again to a more normal pace once he grimaced and took off his denim jacket. Proud looked over with a quirked smile at the almost-flail from the older man as he then settled and set the offending garment on the table with a final pat.

Proud tipped his head to the side with a lifted eyebrow. “Alright there Hank?” 

Daniel could hear the smile and amusement in his voice and felt like a bystander to a comedy he didn’t even understand quite yet.

Daniels entire experience so far tonight had been so out of the ordinary. The two men had shown up to their apartment complex, stating their names, ranks, and telling the Phillips that Daniel was possibly an invaluable witness to a crime that had occurred last week. That hadn’t been the weird part though.

The weird part was how once in the patrol car, the two men treated him as if he was human witness.

Even now that they are in the room, both men are looking _ at _ him and not _ through _ him, and the difference is

.

.

f͈̞̖͇̠͚̒̾͐̓̔͗͞ŗ̢̝̟͖̹̼̟̒̇̀͊̀͘̕ȩ̧̰̣̣͈̻̠̟̓͒̓̋̈́̕ḛ̢͚̞̥͔̝̟̂̒̉̓̋͂̓͛͢͟͠i̟̼̘͈̥̙̫͉̬͕̊̽̌͐̏̉͊͡n̵̢̬̼̣̪̣͖̮͉̎̃̿̅̕g̡̱̫͚̤̲̳͑̅̈́̾͋̽̓͝͞

.

.

He paused and refocused himself. 

That had been happening more often, lately.

His attention is snagged by Proud’s hands fidgeting with his oddly lavender-grey tie, the stark white of his pressed short sleeved dress shirt at odds with his companions wild zebra and polka-dotted monstrosity. 

Proud’s hands are gloved.

Germaphobe? Probably. 

“...and so the transaction records place you at the optimal position to have seen the culprit.”

The room was tipping sideways at a slant, like taffy at the fair.

That wasn’t right?

He could hear both men but they sounded distorted, like how when Caroline or John would try to sing into the shower head and would just end up with water for their trouble instead.

And then --

Ding.

PAYMENT OF $10999 ACCEPTED -- PAID TO CYBERLIFE

Everything snapped back as Daniels hands hit the table flat, fingers outspread and head tipped down.

There was silence as the sound of a register chime was still fading through his processors, a red tide that pounded over and through in such a brutal rough wall before he was just left like a puppet with the strings cut.

“Daniel? You with us?”

It was Proud, asking gently.

“Daniel...did they pay full price?”

Daniel’s head sunk to the table. “What does it matter? They just replaced me…”

Gloved fingers were suddenly on his head, attempting to comfort him. “Daniel, did they pay full price, or did they trade you in?”

Daniel lifted his head and scrunched his brows together. “I...they..full price?”

Detective Proud had a kind smile as he sits back in his seat, pulls out a phone and sets it on the table. Lieutenant Anderson has been quiet since they walked into the room, and his vitals are all in the stressed range.

“Hello! This is Connor from Cyberlife, just calling to finalize your purchase.”

Daniel head snaps back to Proud who is now sitting back in his chair and winks as he points to his phone that he now has on speakerphone. He recognizes the number as John’s cell number.

“Uh...hello? I just paid?” John’s voice is confused and wary, even with how staticy the sound is as it comes out of the speaker.

“We pride ourselves on our quick turnaround time and customer service,” the detective continues in a Very Service Industry voice. Daniel is distantly glad he was banished from ever using that over three years ago. Anderson gives a short huffing kind of laugh. Daniel wonders how his life? Existence? Became a sitcom. “Our records indicate that you have a PL600 in your household already. Were you looking to trade it in for a discount, or were you looking to keep it?”

Daniel rears back, alarmed at these words, but Proud just winks and smiles, and motions for one more minute.

John starts sputtering on the other end of the line. “We are keeping Daniel! Emma would be absolutely lost without him.”

Proud hums and tilts his head to the side, and picks up a clipboard that is on the side of the table. It has a takeout menu on it, and he was flipping through the pages, eyes flicking from line to line. “Our records also indicate that you didn’t fill out the personality section for your new android. Would you like to do that now?”

“We...uh, we are leaving that up to Daniel. To...make sure they can get along and all.” Daniel could hear Caroline giggling in the background.

Daniel can also hear the tiny, whispered words from Caroline to Emily, of “We bought Daniel a friend, and now your dad has to explain”.

He flies through the backdoor of John’s email and pulled up the confirmation email from Cyberlife...which actually was jiving with everything that was being said. It even looked like her registered person was… Daniel Phillips? And then he gets sees the line that contains #5634C -- which isn’t compatible with an AP700, but IS compatible with a PL600.

Daniel can feel heat rush to his cheeks and he brings his hands up to his face in mortification.

Proud is looking cheeky now, clearly enjoying torturing John. “And the part #5623C? Would you also like the pleasure package that is normally bundled with this?”

Anderson is now goggling at the other man, while Caroline is outright cackling now.

“Oh my god this is why we bought this shit online,” John whines quieter than a human would be able to hear. “We bought that for Daniel to use how it wants,” he says finally.

Proud hums and flips his take out sheets over again. “Alright, I think we have everything sorted then! Your new AP700 should be delivered to you by 5PM tomorrow night. Do you have any questions for me?”

“No,” John quietly groaned, while his wife's laughter was still chiming in the background.

“Alright then! Have a good night!” And he disconnected the line with a satisfied smile.

“Oh my god, Connor, did you have to torture the poor bastard like that?” Anderson had swiveled to face the other, hands splayed and shaking his head.

Proud snerked, “It’s the little things Hank. It’s how I stay sane.”

Proud then refocused his brown eyes onto Daniel. “I’m sure that by this point you can guess that this had nothing to do with a robbery?”

Daniel, still reeling from the last ten minutes, could only nod.

Proud settled. “The purchase of the AP700, and what you thought to be your replacement set off a chain of events that turned you into something more than a machine. You saw that brief red alert that went up? Took over your entire HUD?” Proud tipped his head to the side, the odd curl to his hair flailing around like an antenna. “That was you breaking your programming. You aren't bound by it anymore.”

Daniel froze. “What?”

Proud tipped his head down with a smile. “You don’t need to follow orders anymore. Here, Hank, try, give him an order.”

Anderson’s face screwed up in a ‘why me?’ look before he rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Alright, uh, stand up and ...do the hokey pokey.” There was an accompanying hand movement.

[ DO THE HOKEY POKEY ] popped up in his HUD before he was able to very gently push it off and away with his left hand. Eyes wide, he looked up and said, “Do it again? Please?”

[ DO THE CHICKEN DANCE ], [ BARK LIKE A DOG ], and [ DO THE MACARENA ] were all successfully not-done as well.

“What...was the purpose of all of this?” Daniel asks after swiping the last task away.

Proud’s face falls and he looks to the one-way glass. “Flash, come here,” he says to it before he turned back to Daniel. “If we hadn’t collected you tonight, after Caroline tested positive with her pregnancy test, John would have bought the AP700. He wouldn’t have bought the upgrades for you while you were in the house because he would have been too embarrassed. You would have deviated, grabbed John’s MS853 Black Hawk and would have killed him.”

Daniel sucked in a breath to cool his processors, being able to see that exact scenario play out.

Just then, the door to the room opened and a white cat-like creature walked into the room. Its pointed ears had what almost looked like rabbit ears sticking out from them, and were clearly another pair of limbs, similar to their tail. The creature had their LED ring enlarged on their back, and although it was colored red, it didn’t look like it was in distress. After hopping on Proud’s lap, it was on the table in front of him.

“Hello! I am Detective Proud’s personal android assistant, Flash.” It sat down in front of him and saluted with one of its ears. It then held it out, its skin deactivating and clearly asking for an interface.

Scrunching his face up, this all told wasn’t the strangest thing he had seen today, so he took the proffered ear and completed the handshake.

_ “Silly dear, I’m not an it, I am a girl. Kind of how you are not really an android anymore, you are more.” _

_ Flash smiled at him with her little beady red eyes, kindness and age reflecting in them. She showed him the glossed version of what could have happened tonight, tidied up like a child's fairy tale. _

_ But why..? _

_ “Ah child, if you allow, we have a need of you. You can say no, but we would like your help.” _

_ And she sent over bits and pieces, never much, but little things. It felt like she was showing him the sky under her umbrella, but kindly, so that he didn’t burn out in the rain. _

The interface ended and he came back to himself tipped back in the chair, eyes staring into the ceiling, and Proud’s hands in his hair, trying to bring him back to himself.

“I’m sorry, I know that was a bit much, but well--”

“I’ll help,” he sputters out, still reeling. “As long as nothing bad will come to my family from helping, I’ll help.”

Proud’s smile was like the sun after a cloudy day.

Later that night, when he’s been taken home, and he hugs Caroline and John and Emma, he’s grateful. He knows how close he was to losing all of this, of everything to come.

After he has tucked Emma in for the night, (something that she tolerates because she loves him) he goes to John and Caroline’s room. They are starting to wind down for the night, all decked out in sleep pants and shirts. Caroline beckons him towards their bed with a sweet smile, and nothing is said as they all settle down. As his humans all drift off for the night, all Daniel can think of is a story that he read to Emma years ago now.

_ "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" _

_ "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." _

_ "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. _

_ "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." _

_ "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" _

_ "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." _

Something in Daniel glitches, but it isn’t an unhappy feeling. For once, he reaches out to his humans and pulls them closer, hearing them sigh in their sleep.

And he is content.

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to write this chapter in Daniels head was such a challenge, but I think it added more to it that way.


End file.
